An excellent *microcontroller* from the M2 series of PICAXE chips. The 18M2+ chip features 16 configurable input/output pins [16 usable pins + 2 pins for voltage/GND = 18 pins] and harnesses new Microchip PIC technology including: internal temperature sensor, Manchester radio encoding by use of simple commands [rfout, rfin], additional memory, time-sliced parallel multi-tasking of up to 8 tasks, etc. I haven't been able to use all the features of the 18m2+ yet, but learning the PICAXE BASIC language was a snap and this microcontroller was a good lead into my new hobby of microcontrollers and interfacing. My first project utilized the 18m2+ to SIMULATE a BCD to 7-Segment [4511] plus decade counter [4517]. I used pinsB as outputs to the 7-segment, 4 of the pinsC as binary input, and the rest for signaling the 'counter', a software 'reset' pin, etc. For my project, the PICAXE platform offered multi-tasking/time-slicing, free PICAXE Editor 6 software, directives, symbols, variables, input, output, pins, interrupts, "lookup" table command, integer math, an internal 1 second timer, etc. The possibilities are endless!
